1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a medium delivery device mounted on a medium processing apparatus such as a check processing apparatus, a printer, a scanner, and a magnetic reading apparatus in order to separate sheet-shaped mediums such as checks and recording papers and to deliver them one by one.
2. Related Art
In financial institutions such as banks, types of checks (types of securities) such as a check and a bill are put into a check processing apparatus, surface images and magnetic ink characters thereon are read out, and then a classification operation of the types of checks is performed on the basis of the reading-out result. Recently, as electronic payments have come into wide use, the read image data and magnetic ink characters have been processed by computers and these kinds of checks have been managed by computers. In Patent Document 1, such a check processing apparatus is disclosed.
In the check processing apparatus, checks are inserted into a check insertion section in a stacked state and the inserted checks are sent to a transport passage by a feed roller disposed in a medium separating mechanism. In order to deliver the checks by the feed roller, the medium separating mechanism is provided with a pressing member so that the checks are pressed against the feed roller.
Generally, a rotation-type member is employed as the pressing member, which is rotated about one end thereof so that the checks are pressed against the feed roller at the other end. The rotation-type pressing member has a simple structure and has a high reliability in operation, in comparison with a parallel-moving pressing member.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-No. 2004-206362
The rotation-type pressing member presses the check at a position in the vicinity of the feed roller, and the rotation-type pressing member is in a state where the check is not restricted in a stacked direction at the other positions than the position in the vicinity of the feed roller. As a result, a check having creases at the front end thereof in a delivery direction may not be delivered, and thus the check may be jammed in the medium separating mechanism.
That is, a width of guide surfaces for guiding the check becomes narrow toward a delivery port thereof. In the vicinity of the delivery port of the medium separating mechanism, the right and left guide surfaces are inclined or bent to approach each other so that the checks are delivered one by one from the delivery port having the small width. When the check stored in the medium separating mechanism in a stacked state has creases or the like at the front end there, the front end of the check is caught at the guide surface portion that is inclined or bent and thus the check may not be delivered. Accordingly, the check may be jammed therein.
When the check in the medium separating mechanism is pressed overall by the use of the parallel-moving pressing member, it is possible to avoid such a problem. However, since the parallel-moving pressing member has a moving mechanism with a complex structure in comparison with the rotation-type pressing member and the number of parts thereof is large, manufacture cost is high and reliability is low.